Spring begins!

I snapped this photo last Friday (3/20), the first day of spring. Conditions are at a premium right now, before the long, hot days of summer. We are making every effort to hold on to the fickle poa annua in our fairways for as long as we can. Unfortunately, we will come to a point when the poa begins to die and bare/thin areas return. It's just a fact of growing an annual plant in a perennial environment. The exciting news is that we will not have to tolerate poor summer conditions much longer, as we will begin our Bermuda fairway conversion in late July!

Tee and Approach Aerification

We began tee and approach aerification this week, completing the front nine Wednesday afternoon. We were also able to spike all the front nine fairways, as well as historical problem areas in the rough. We will continue this same process on the back nine next week. With mild spring temperatures, this is an ideal time for aerification. The grass is growing rapidly and the healing process should be minimized.

Native Area Cleanup

We continue to use any extra manpower to clean and trim native areas that have become overgrown. Last month we were able to work on the right side of #6. This month we have been working on the right side of the 5th hole. Just a week ago, the area in the picture at right was completely overgrown to the point that one could not even see the base of the large Eucalyptus. We think it looks much better and hope you do too.

Bermuda vs. Kikuyu

One of several reasons we decided to use Bermuda in our fairways instead of Kikuyu was it's increased disease resistance. Note the grass on the right is Bermuda and disease free, while the Kikuyu on the left is inundated with Brown Patch.

#17 Fairway Cut

Last week we began the process to of lowering the rough on the left side of #17 to eventually convert it to fairway height. It will take several weeks, as we are slowly reducing the height to keep from scalping the grass. This area is a low spot where the fairway and rough converge, which tends to collect a lot of balls. I have personally witnessed many difficult lies in this area due to the balls being half in the rough and half in the fairway. Hopefully we have corrected this from happening in the future.

2014 confirmed as hottest year on record

Pace Turf had reported earlier that 2014 was likely to be the hottest on record for the planet. Now, we unfortunately have confirmation of those worst fears. This week, Scientists at two independent organizations — NASA (the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) issued separate data compilations showing that 2014 was the warmest year since record–keeping began in 1880. Two other scientific groups that track global temperatures — one in Japan, and another in Britain, will issue similar reports in the near future. Extreme heat was the norm in much of the world last year, with records set across large areas of every inhabited continent. Only the eastern portion of the U.S. recorded below average temperatures in 2014. Of even greater concern is that the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997.Scientific consensus is that the majority of planetary warming is the result of human activity — primarily the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that are produced when fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) are burnt. Political and social consensus has been more elusive. Regardless of your thoughts on the causes of global warming, there is all kinds of other economic and environmental reasons to regularly review our fertilizer, pesticide, water and fuel use patterns, and determine whether more can be done to conserve.

New Mow Lines

I have been getting a lot of questions regarding the orange lines in front of the greens. These lines represent where I want different mowers to operate. The first line is four yards in front of the green and is maintained with a walk mower. The second line is about 15 yards in front of the green and is cut using a light weight triplex riding mower. From there out, we mow with our larger fairway units. I decided to make this change to reduce unnecessary compaction due to the fairway units cutting what is now being cut with the triplex.